Unlocking Hidden Spins in Centrosymmetric SnSe2 by Vacancy-Controlled Spin-Orbit Scattering
Abstract
Spin current generation and manipulation remain the key challenge of spintronics, in which relativistic spinorbit coupling (SOC) play a ubiquitous role. In this letter, we demonstrate that hidden Rashba spins in the non-magnetic, centrosymmetric lattice of multilayer SnSe2 can be efficiently activated by spin-orbit scattering introduced by Se vacancies. Via vacancy scattering, conduction electrons with hidden spin-momentum locked polarizations acquire out-of-plane magnetization components, which effectively break the chiral symmetry between the two Se sublattices of an SnSe2 monolayer when electron spins start precession in the strong built-in Rashba SOC field. The resulting spin separations are manifested in quantum transport as vacancy concentrationand temperature-dependent crossovers from weak antilocalization (WAL) to weak localization (WL), with the distinctive spin relaxation mechanism of the Dyakonov-Perel type. Our study shows the great potential of twodimensional systems with hidden-spin textures for spintronics.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2304.07448,
title = {Unlocking Hidden Spins in Centrosymmetric SnSe2 by Vacancy-Controlled Spin-Orbit Scattering},
author = {Hengzhe Lu and Zhibin Qi and Yuqiang Huang and Man Cheng and Feng Sheng and Zhengkuan Deng and Shi Chen and Chenqiang Hua and Pimo He and Yunhao Lu and Yi Zheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.07448},
year = {2023}
}